By FrankThilly, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century had implicit
faith in the powers of human reason to reach the truth.
With its logical-mathematical method it endeavored
to illuminate every nook and corner of knowledge,
to remove all obscurity, mystery, bigotry, and superstition,
to find a reason for everything under the sun.
Nature, religion, the State, law, morality, language,
and art were brought under the searchlight of reason
and reduced to simple and self-evident principles.
Human institutions were measured according to their
reasonableness; whatever was not rational had no raison
d’etre; to demolish the natural and historical
in order to make room for the rational became the
practical ideal of the day. Enlightenment emphasized
the worth and dignity of the human individual, it sought
to deliver him from the slavery of authority and tradition,
to make him self-reliant in thought and action, to
obtain for him his natural rights, to secure his happiness
and perfection in a world expressly made for him,
and to guarantee the continuance of his personal existence
in the life to come. In Germany this great movement
found expression in a popular commonsense philosophy
which proved the existence of God, freedom, and immortality,
and conceived the universe as a rational order designed
by an all-wise and all-good Creator for the benefit
of man, his highest product; while other thinkers regarded